HandmadeCozyLife

料理を中心に、手作りや少しの工夫で自分らしく、お得でややレトロで、ちょっぴり豊かな普段を公開していきます。

Posts in English

Chinese Pepper Steak with Fishcake Instead of Pork or Beef Strips

One of the most popular items on the menu at many Chinese restaurants is pepper steak. It's satisfying, colorful, and you get the nutritional benefit of the vegetables and protein from the pork or beef strips, so you don't feel much guilt …

Modified Okinawan Shaved Carrot with Canned Tuna

I can't digest eggs. If I eat them I get a rumbling pain in my abdomen that lasts for hours, and bloat something awful, to the point that people assume I'm pregnant and offer me their seats on the train. But I really liked the Okinawan sha…

Quick and Easy Green Beans and Dried Shrimp a la Chinoise

Maybe you're missing a little green for your table, but there's not much time to cook. Or you've adjusted well enough to working from home to realize that you don't want to spend your free time cooking, but would rather give your children …

Baby Bok Choy and Dried Shiitake Mushroom a la Chinoise

Most authentic Chinese restaurants are geared toward large groups. The idea in most of these places is to order a variety of dishes to share. The sort of dishes that give a true picture of the level of a restaurant, that is, the dishes tha…

Glazed Bok Choy and Fake Crab

Many years ago, when I was an exchange student in Taiwan, there was a little Cantonese restaurant near my dormitory. I loved that restaurant, especially the bok choy, tofu, and dried scallop stir-fry. After my return to Japan, I came up wi…

Bead Figurines

I have beaded for about 23 years now. When I first started I looked at pattern diagrams, but over time my hands started to take chage. I only have a vague notion of what I'm going to make when I start. I cut a suitable length of wire, and …

Stir-fry Your Own Bean Sprouts

Stir-fried bean sprouts is a classic Chinese dish. It's surprisingly expensive if you order it in a restaurant, but when you are in the vegetable section of the grocery store you will probably notice that the bean sprouts themselves, along…

Zucchini and Olives in Olive Oil Stir-fry

Zucchini is one of the vegetables that I was not a fan of as a child but now love as an adult. Zucchini are not failed cucumbers. They go well with tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms, and of course make a good topping for spaghetti. Not every…

Bamboo Shoots Lightly Stewed with Green Peas

If you're looking to add roughage to your diet without too much effort, bamboo shoots are effective. If you use the vacuum packed ones, all you have to do is wash and cut them, as the husks have been dealt with already. It's hard to find a…

Hand-knit Blankets

It takes at least two years to knit a blanket. I only know how to knit square scrubbers, so I knit a ton of those, and join them together. I knit blankets for both of my parents. Colorful ones. Here is a closeup of the stitch. It's pretty …

Carrots Stewed in Lemon Juice

I have always loved carrots. When I was little I ate too many of them, to the point where I turned orange from the carotene. I often make dishes in which carrots are the main star, but one of my favorites is carrots stewed in lemon juice. …

Broccoli and Cashew Stir-fry

Broccoli and cashew nuts are both popular ingredients in Chinese food, especially Cantonese cuisine. Both are often paired with chicken, which I hate. I get around this problem by putting the broccoli and cashew nuts together without their…

Japanese Turnip stewed with Baby Fish and Mountain Pepper

Japanese turnips are great. Not only the white root, but even the stems and leaves are edible. The leaves taste a lot like kikuna greens with their citrus-y flavor profile, making them a good fit with baby fish and mountain pepper. The gre…

Canard Couture

This stuffed duck has been in my life for as long as I can remember, making her around 30 years old. My dad is probably the one who brought her home. She was more than likely the Sanrio Duckadoo character (what do you mean, you don't remem…

Komatsuna Greens Stewed with Fish Sausage

Komatsuna is cheap, easy to get (at least in Japan it is), and has a pleasantly quenching, succulent crunch to it. It can be paired with thin-fried tofu, baby shrimp, "chikuwa" tubular fish sausage, or any other protein, so it's easy to av…

"Glazed" Celery and Fake Crab

Today's dish is "Glazed Celery and Fake Crab." It's easy and cheap to make, but seems sort of vaguely Chinese-ish and frankly looks festive. The fun is that the crab is fake, and that the dish is not really "glazed" in a technical sense. I…

Sweetpotatoes Stewed in Lemon Juice with Cinnamon

Autumn is the harvest season, in which sweetpotatoes and pumpkins come to night. Sweetpotatoes in particular can be made into a rather sweet dish, so you won't need dessert (right?). 1.Wash an ordinary sweetpotato. Never mind whether Japa…

Plum Burdock

My best dish, that I take to every potluck, is my "Plum Burdock." It's similar to classic stewed burdock, but I flavor it with plum sauce. The burdock dish in my family's New Year feast is my plum burdock. (That's because I make the whole …

Cabbage and clams au vin

One of the cheapest vegetables at the supermarket is probably cabbage. Cabbage can be heavenly when it's in season, especially in the spring. Having a cabbage dish on hand is also pretty convenient, since you can serve it as a side with yo…

Embroidered Tea Towels

Here are some recent examples of my embroidery. I embroidered two tea towels in the traditional sashiko style for the church bazaar. The average age of the ladies in the handicrafts posse, of which I am a member, is about 70, and as I am t…

Playtime in the Park

When was the last time you went into a public park to play? Were you a kid? Or did you have your child in tow? I still go to the park to play, even though I'm a single, childless 30-year-old woman. The swings are my favorite. I only go aft…

I Don't Have an Oven

There are a lot of nice, posh recipe books out there for people who live alone, but many of them involve grilling and roasting. Most normal apartments and houses can at least accomodate a stove-top oven/ grill, but my flat is too small to …

Living Better for Less--Just like Grandma (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. For the first five tips, see the English article before this one! 6. Don't spend too much on beauty. Really, a 50,000 yen face cream isn't going to magically make you young and beautiful. Whatever moist…

Living Better for Less--Just like Grandma (Part 1)

When you take stock of your finances at the end of each month, do you squeal in delight at the growth of your savings, or do you scream in horror at the growth of your deficit? What's that? You don't review your finances at the end of each…

Italian-Inspired Garlic Asparagus

I love to cook. As a child I wasn't much interested in food or eating, but when I learned to cook around age 18, I suddenly discovered the joys of eating. Even so, some of the foods that the humans around me eat are inedible for me; this i…

Welcome to My Handmade Cozy Life!

Hello and welcome to the Handmade Cozy Life blog! As the title suggests, the aim of this blog is to document the ways in which I make a lot of things myself in an attempt to live a truly rich, abundant, cozy life. The term "handmade" emcom…